Navidi nodded but Jack could see that his heart rate was rising. The squad leader was angry. Chits were going to pay for killing his friend.
Navidi called out two Marines. “Hold here,” he said, then pushed past the rest of his squad and ran down the stairs, bayonet forward.
“Contact,” Navidi said immediately on reaching the bottom of the stairs. “Contact front.”
Jack saw the lights flashing as the EBs sliced away in the corridor below. Jack followed and came down to find a Chitin soldier twitching on the ground. Jack speared it through the head. Looking ahead, Jack could see along the full length of the corridor, running the length of the ship. It was filled with Chits. They came forward along the deck and the corridor roof panels. They crawled along the walls. They swarmed forward, their tentacles rigid and ready to start stabbing Marines.
The corridor was only three meters wide, just enough room for two Marines to stand abreast and slash away with their bayonets. A Marine went down to a jab from a Chitin tentacle. Jack saw it slice clean through the meat suit and out the Marine’s left shoulder. Another stepped up and took his place, slashing wildly side to side at the Chitin soldier before him.
“Squad leader,” Jack called out. “Position your men four abreast. Jab forward with the bayonet.”
Navidi shouted, “Yes sir.” He stepped into the line. Another Marine joined him and the four stood like a wall, thrusting forward with their long electron bayonets fizzing at the end of the pulse rifle.
A Chit came rushing along the corridor, shoving the others aside. It slammed into the line of four Marines. The electron blades cut through the tentacles as it barged past, severing them. They dropped to the floor, writhing and twitching. Once beyond Navidi and his forward wall, the Chit was stabbed by a Marine standing behind the four.
Then the corridor seemed full from top to bottom with writhing tentacles. Jack counted five of the Chitin soldiers rushing forward.
“Hold them,” Jack shouted. He activated his suit’s thruster jet and leaped to the ceiling panels above the line of four Marines. He turned upside-down and fastened himself to the ceiling with his boots’ connection field. He slashed in a wide arc, his blade slicing through a Chitin head.
“Up here,” Jack shouted. “Four of you, in a line here.”
The Marines of 1st squad holding position behind the line of Marines were standing upside-down on the ceiling panels within moments. Jack fell back and stood behind the wall of eight Marines, jabbing forward at any Chitin soldier that came too close. The Marines created a bristling wall of fizzing blades denying the Chits any advance along the corridor.
The civilians were holed up halfway down the corridor. Jack could cut his way down to them. All he had to do was move his Marines forward.
“First Squad,” Jack called, “steady advance. Take it slow. Hold formation. Keep stabbing forward. Move.”
“You heard him. Move, First Squad,” Navidi called.
Jack walked behind the squad and their stabbing bayonets. Chitin soldiers rushed forward to meet the advance and were cut apart by the bayonets of 1st squad.
“Jones is down.”
Jack heard the shout at the same moment he saw the breach in the line. He sent the last man into the position and dragged the injured Marine back. An entry wound in the abdomen was already sealed by the meat suit. Jack checked the vital signs on the enhanced data view and saw that the Marine was calm, having been dosed with tranqs, but he was losing a lot of blood while the suit tried to stop the internal bleeding.
Jack pressed the Marine to the ground. “Hold here, Jones,” he said. It was time to call in the 6th.
“Sam, get over here. I need you to take the wounded.”
Torent quickly responded that he was on the way.
Jack called the two 1st squad Marines that were holding the stairway to the cockpit. “Get down here, we need you ready to get in the line here.”
That was when he saw another man fall. A Chitin soldier pushed the Marine back, stabbing forward with its tentacles. They were now a man short. Jack rushed in to fill the gap. He stepped over the fallen Marine, Joe Navidi, the squad leader of 1st.
Jack saw the Chits rushing forward. The Marines jabbed forward with their electron bayonets, multiple blades piercing the massive head of a Chitin.
Jack acted on instinct alone. He jabbed at one Chit and as that one fell away, he jabbed at the one that replaced it. A seemingly never-ending rush of Chitin soldiers, all determined to kill the Marines that were pressing them back along the corridor.
Jack felt a tap on his shoulder. A Marine was ready to replace him in the line. Jack was standing alongside the Marines and fighting hard. The Marines around him could only go forward. Jack didn’t feel that it was right for him to step back.
“I’ve got this, sir,” the Marine said.
Jack nodded and stepped back, the Marine taking his place in a seamless swap. Immediately, the man was jabbing forward at a Chit pressing up to the line.
“Keep moving forward,” Jack said. He looked back and saw Bailey dragging Jones back toward the stairs up to the cockpit.
“Get the wounded out of here, Bailey,” Jack shouted. “Get them back to the Scorpio. Copy?”
“Copy that, sir,” Bailey replied.
As Bailey dragged Jones away, Jack saw him lift his hand and offer a salute.
“And clear these dead Chits away,” Jack said and went back to manage the advancing line that were fighting against the Chitin soldiers that had boarded the civilian craft.
Standing behind the line of Marines was harder work than standing at the front. Jack watched every movement and every attack from the Chit invaders. Another man fell to the stabbing Chitin tentacles and another Marine took their place. As the Chitin soldiers were pressed further back along the main corridor, they fought harder and more frenetically. They came rushing forward in combined attacks that hammered into the Marines, but the line held and the Chits were cleared from the central corridor.
The end of the main corridor split into two corridors. There was room for only two Marines, one on the ceiling panels and one on the deck. Jack set a team of two Marines from 1st squad along one and two Marines from 6th along the other.
Jack held position at the junction. He could hear his Marines breathing heavily over their helmet communicators. It seemed to take an age as Jack waited and listened. Finally relief, as the first team reported the area was clear, closely followed by the same report from the second team.
Jack inspected the corridors. The dead Chits covered the walkway. He watched cautiously as he approached the first fallen Chit. He stuck his bayonet into the Chit to be sure. The civilian ship was secure. The civilians were saved.
The captain of the civilian craft opened the door to the sealed compartment. The occupants were red-faced, hot and flustered. They all wore expressions of relief and fear.
“You’re safe now,” Jack said. “We got them all.”
The crew let out sighs—and cries—of relief. Jack could see for himself the strain their ordeal had taken on them all. And the ship itself was suffering from the strain put on it by the many Chitin Hydras still attached to the hull.
It had been a tough fight, and for Jack, who had barely gotten his hands dirty, it had been one of the toughest.
6
Writing the after-action report was harder for Jack than the actual battle. He remembered in detail every moment of the fight. Every wounded Marine numbered. Although there had been several wounded, there was only one fatality. Navidi of 1st squad was dead.
Jack had fought with Navidi at the Battle of Kratos Drydock. They’d worked together to fight off the Chitin infiltration of the Scorpio. Navidi was a good Marine and Jack would have recommended him for a position as company commander. The battalion had lost another good man. Jack wondered if any of them would survive this war.
The corridors of the Scorpio were busier than he had ever seen them when he finally left his quarters. The civilians
they had rescued were wandering around the ship. He could see the relief on their faces mixed with excitement at being on a Fleet destroyer.
Jack recognized many of their faces, but none recognized him. He had been fully suited during the rescue mission, his face covered by the meat suit helmet. Jack passed by them all and walked to the VR deck where he slid into the first free VR pod he could find.
A high-level battle exercise was just what Jack needed to work off his energy.
Jack fought one Chitin after another. He went running through a variety of environments, firing his pulse rifle to bring down a Chit and then rushing in and finishing the thing off with his fizzing electron bayonet. He increased the difficulty level, introducing more Chits and making the terrain more difficult.
He ran and he shot and he stabbed. The VR pod reported his heart rate was high and his energy levels low. Jack increased the tempo and fought on. He saw the Chits closing in on all sides. He slashed wildly with his EB, slicing tentacles away.
And the Chits closed in, their shining carapaces blocking out the simulated red giant sun as they surrounded him.
A message from Griff caused the simulation to pause—a Chitin soldier, with its round mouth and ring of white teeth, dripping with slime and poised to smash into Jack’s body, centimeters away from the killer blow.
“Sorry to disturb you, Jack,” Griff said. “I wanted you to hear right away. The Scorpio is leaving the carrier group and we are returning to Eros to drop off the civilians. We are going to be a cruise ship for a few days. Rest up, Jack. You’ve earned it.”
Jack acknowledged the message and closed the channel. He looked at the face of the VR Chit. He had fought them too many times to count. He’d always had faced them with determination and a cool head, fighting them back time and again. Now his battle with them was more abstract. As a leader and company commander, he needed to fight them with tactics and strategy more than with his pulse rifle. The Marines of Cobra Company were relying on him to make the right call and get the job done. They were putting their lives on the line and trusting Jack not to throw their lives away with poor decisions.
Command was proving to be the hardest fight he had yet faced. Jack cancelled the training simulation and exited the VR pod.
The flight to Eros would take days. The Scorpio was undergoing running repairs and was on low power. The destroyer had been in too many engagements over the last year in space and was badly in need of a refit.
The rescued miners were handy with power tools and were drafted to work in the maintenance department. Sarah Reyes had no time for Jack while she was busy overseeing her new work party, a bunch of grizzled men following the instructions of a young woman.
Not that Jack had time for socializing. He had a mountain of paperwork. He was developing training sessions for the entire battalion and checking the data on every Marine, looking for one who would be suitable for the step-up to company commander. He had lists of Marines and their performance evaluations. He had lists of virtual reality training programs and the masses of data they generated. There was data on accuracy, movement rate, and situational awareness. Data in numerical form and graphical form. Testimonies from squad leaders and personal assessments.
Jack became a recluse, in his small quarters, accompanied only by piles of data. Days went by as he closely studied every squad leader’s meat suit and VR data.
Jack had watched Laidlaw, the squad leader of Cobra’s 5th squad, during the recent rescue mission at the mining asteroid. Laidlaw had handled himself well, and had only narrowly escaped. Laidlaw had been untested in battle when Jack had first met him, but in a relatively short time, he had acquired a lot of combat experience.
Jack had studied Laidlaw’s meat suit data from the recent Chitin incursion on to the Scorpio after the assault on the Chitin surveillance network. Laidlaw had held an access corridor to weapons control and had managed the situation well, even though the Chits had attacked his position in force. Jack studied the helmet camera data. The Chits were determined to break Laidlaw and his squad and stop the Scorpio’s guns. It had been a vital skirmish and Laidlaw had managed the situation well. He fought the Chits off with accurate pulse rifle fire and some neat electron bayonet work, but he had also had the ability to assess the bigger picture and manage his squad well. He had a sound tactical mind and an ability to remain calm under pressure. He seemed like a perfect candidate. Jack marked Laidlaw’s file as a potential company commander and moved on to another.
The call from Pretorius was a welcome distraction. Jack was requested to present himself on the command deck where Captain Pretorius and Major Griff were waiting for him.
“Well done on the last mission, Jack,” Griff said. “No civilian casualties. Excellent work.”
Jack nodded. There had been Marine casualties, but as a company commander, he knew he couldn’t dwell on it. He needed to move forward. He couldn’t forget those he’d lost, but he couldn’t let their loss hamper his leadership and decision-making.
“We’ve got another one for you, Jack,” Griff said.
Pretorius tapped the holostage and brought up an image. It was a building on an asteroid. Jack looked closely. It looked to be a heavily guarded building with perimeter fences and electron shielding. Guard towers at regular points around the perimeter and at interior fencing. There were few entry points in the main building. It looked to be heavily fortified. Very difficult to get into. Then Jack realized something else: it would be very difficult to get out of. The building was not designed to prevent anyone or anything getting in. It was designed to prevent anyone or anything getting out. It was a prison.
Jack looked at Griff when he realized the nature of the structure. Griff was studying Jack. He seemed to notice that Jack had understood what the building was and he nodded.
“Yes, Jack,” Griff said. “It’s a prison facility.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong, have I, sir?” Jack laughed.
Griff smiled. “Not as far as I know, Commander.”
“What’s the mission, sir?” Jack asked, standing upright.
Pretorius stepped away from the holostage as Commander Chou brought a file for the captain to read. Pretorius left Jack and Griff at the holostage and sat in his chair.
“As you know, there is a full-scale evacuation from the outer system and asteroid belt. All humans are retreating to the inner system to escape Chitin attacks. The civilians are better defended by the planetary defenses around Eros and Eras. No Chit vessel has come within range of those defenses and we don’t think they will be suicidal enough to even try. We are passing this prison asteroid facility on our way back to Eros. We are required to remove the prisoners and bring them safely back to Eros.”
“How many prisoners are there?” Jack asked. If he was going to evacuate the prisoners, he would need to take enough landing craft to the surface to take them away.
“Only sixty,” Griff said. “The majority of the low-risk inmates have already been moved on a civilian ship that was passing.”
“So I get to take the bad guys, sir?” Jack asked.
“The high-risk category inmates, that’s correct.” Griff looked Jack in the eye. “Some nasty characters down there.”
Jack nodded and looked at the facility. There was a landing bay large enough for a Marine shuttle. A corridor ran from the landing bay to the prison’s main building. A squad or two of heavily-armed, fully-suited Marines could funnel the inmates along that corridor and into a waiting landing craft. They could be in and out quickly. “Is it an automated facility, sir?” Jack asked. He thought this might be an easy mission.
“Yes,” Griff said. “Fully automated. Even the death row units.”
Jack looked at Griff with surprise. “Death row inmates?”
“That’s right,” Griff confirmed. “The government thinks that justice would better be served by a standard public execution on Eros than leaving them for the Chits.”
Jack looked again at the facility. “I’ll
select my team and prepare a plan. How long do I have?”
Jack and Griff looked to Pretorius up on his chair.
“We will intercept the asteroid prison in forty-five minutes.” Pretorius said without looking up from his work.
“I’d better move fast then,” Jack said to Griff.
“It’s not your typical, straightforward mission, Jack. Take as many Marines as you think you need. Get down there. Get them out and bring them back. Easy as that, copy?”
“Copy that, sir.”
“Remember,” Griff said, “these prisoners are lifers and end-of-lifers. They haven’t got anything to lose. They might see this as a chance to get away. Try not to lose any of them.”
Jack nodded and left the command deck. He quickly chose a group of squad leaders.
Since Laidlaw was a clear favorite for commander, Jack wanted to see him in action on this unusual mission. He was in.
Jarett had impressed Jack when they had fought off the recent Chit attack after the mine rescue. He had held his position and then assisted Jack to clear the Hydra of any remaining threat. Jack had seen Jarett’s data and the squad leader was as good as any. Jack would have Jarett and his squad come along on the prisoner transfer operation too.
Jack knew the squad leaders of Cobra Company best so there was no surprise that he wanted to bring along some Marines he knew and trusted better than any others in the battalion. 6th squad was in and Jack knew that Sam wouldn’t let him down.
He opened a communication channel to the group of selected squad leaders.
“Attention. Muster your squads. Prep and suit up. Form up on the Marine deck in ten. Forge out.”
The acknowledgments came back in moments. Jack knew the squad leaders would be hurrying their squads in to action. Jack knew that these men and women were the best and would not need to be told twice.
7
“As you can see, I have assembled three squads for this operation.” Jack marched across the front of the group on the Marine deck. They stood with their helmets under their arms and their pulse rifles over their shoulders.
Jack Forge, Fleet Marine Boxed Set (Books 1 - 9) Page 40
